Godzilla x King: The New Empire Review

During the Shōwa Era of Godzilla films, Toho almost immediately abandoned the serious allegory of the first 1954 release in favor of kid-friendly popcorn pictures. They're the ones most Americans think of when they hear the word "Godzilla," with silly plots, inane dialogue and cheap visual mayhem that children, all around the world, ate up.

Toho's most recent two releases in the franchise, "Shin Godzilla" and "Godzilla Minus One," go back to the dour edge of that inaugural movie, with human characters acting like real humans might if they were in the situation. But over in the states, Legendary's "MonsterVerse," as it's called, goes straight for the cheese, and the latest one, "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," is a glorious slice of American cheese that makes up for its lack of an actual point with nonstop optical delight. I was far more giddy than I should have been.

The plot, if you could call it a plot, involves everything but aliens, which is surprising when you consider how many canon Godzilla flicks do. It starts with Kong in "Hollow Earth," lamenting the fact that he's the last of his kind. He, and I'm sorry but I'm not making this up, is suffering from a toothache, and heads up to the surface for human help from Trapper (Dan Stevens), a sort of Ace Ventura veterinarian who so kindly replaces it. I never, ever, thought the plots of these things would get this ridiculous, but here we are.

Godzilla's here too, throwing a hissy fit on the surface, destroying other titans (non Kong/Godzilla monsters) as tries to power up before heading to a mysterious distress call. Yes, just like a video game, the King of the Monsters himself gets stronger with each boss he defeats. This is, as the kids put it, not high-class film making. His best scene is, not a fight strangely enough, but how he curls up and sleeps in Rome Colosseum like a cat. It's such an odd, funny scene that they have him do it twice.

Who else can hear this distress call? The last known survivor of the Iwi tribe, Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a deaf girl who can communicate using sign-language with Kong. I am all for better diversity in Hollywood (Kaylee is deaf in real life), but come on! When you begin to resemble the film adaptation of Michael Crichton's "Congo," you'd better be open to trying to "out-silly" it. Her surrogate mother Ilene (Rebecca Hall), is a high-ranking Monarch member, distraught by her daughter's inability to fit in with the other kids. You remember Monarch right? They're the team studying all the monsters, and director Adam Wingard, returning from the first one, is wise enough to realize that no one cares. Do you? If you did, you wouldn't be reading a review, you'd be seeing it on the biggest screen you could, probably twice. So it is monster-on-monster action, with the narrative only coming up when we need to explain why this beast is battling that one this time,

Ilene takes Jia, literally putting her life in danger, along with Trapper and monster podcaster Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) down into the Hollow Earth, before Godzilla makes his way there and bumps into Kong. See, they hate each other, I think Kong said something about Godzilla's mom or something, I dunno. It doesn't matter. None of this matters. Leave your brain at the auditorium door and don't you dare forget the popcorn.

They end up combating carnivorous trees, discover ancient temples, and finally locate an unknown community of the Iwi tribe. Like any great Shōwa Era of Godzilla flick, this one lifts from other cinematic sources, this time from "Indiana Jones." All that's missing is minecarts and Nazis. (Oh god, please, I didn't mean to give the producers an idea for "Godzilla x Kong 3.")

Kong ends up deeper in Hollow Earth and stumbles upon an undisclosed location, which the film humorously tells us with onscreen text reading something like "Subterranean Section." (Snickers.) Here, he finds not one equally giant monkey, but several, and they immediately face off with their fists (and Kong's makeshift ax). After kicking the other apes's butts, he takes in a small Kong, who from now on I will refer to only by "Minilla Kong." They share a lot of screen time, and these scenes are devoid of dialogue and are kinda sweet, but then they tear apart some lake creature and share its guts. They didn't even wash their paws!

Minilla Kong takes Kong Senior to a fiery hellscape ruled by Skar King, a more lanky Kong who abuses the other Kongs in the area. (Are they all Kongs? Is "Kong" a surname? Does it matter?) I won't go on any more about the plot, because my life is too precious to describe every piece of candy in this bulging visual pinata. All I can say is that, while "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" lacks a purpose other than to make money, damn does it give you your money's worth.

In the Land of Saints and Sinners Review

I've compared Liam Neeson's filmography since his breakout role in 2008's "Taken" to that of the late Charles Bronson, and with "In the Land of Saints and Sinners," he does his take on Bronson's "The Mechanic," only it plays out more like a slow-burning dramatic thriller than a nasty action picture.

Liam stars as Finbar Murphy, which is a hilarious name that only becomes more funny with how serious characters yell it at each other. He's, get this, an aging assassin who we see take his final gig under the employment of Robert (Colm Meaney). Why's that? I dunno, I suppose he's tired of the emotional toll, that or he's got his eye on the neighbor Rita (Niamh Cusack), who doesn't know how me makes his money. He frequents a little pub where another one of his neighbors bartends (Sinéad, played by Sarah Greene), and one day he notices her daughter's got a nasty bruise on her neck. This, of course, pisses him off and, well, it's like he never retired.

He kills the man responsible, Sinéad's brother-in-law (Desamond Eastwood), and that really sets off his sister Doireann (Kerry Condon), who, alongside her two friends, as terrorist who have no firm compunction about killing a group of children in a bombing at the start of the film. (She cares enough to try and warn the kids, but not enough to stop the explosion. She's a woman of violent precision.) 

Murphy works alongside his former coworker Kevin, played excellently by Jack Gleeson, a younger assassin also employed by Robert. When he finds out who he just killed and what she's willing to to, including but not limited to properly damage and abuse towards women, the two try and figure out how to take her and her friends out without breaking the relative peace of the small Irish town. He's weary and tired of the killing, where as Kevin almost gets excited, at one point calling it "getting paid to do what he likes." Their dynamic lacks the homoerotic undertones of director Michael Winner's far more exploitative "The Mechanic," but the whole "veteran and newbie" relationship is otherwise much the same. Murphy is hardened, almost bored of the fight, where as Kevin lusts over the bloodshed, finding humor in every bullet he fires.

Then there's Doireann, who's unhinged and played coldly. She's soon works her way through the village loudly and with purpose: the intent to cause destruction and pain. The three main players are really interesting to watch, even if their motivations are old cloth. Liam in particular seems to be one script away from finding his "Gran Torino" character, with how limited his hand-to-hand blows are compared to the aim of his trusty shotgun.

Director Robert Lorenz, who also helmed Neeson in 2021's "The Marksman," is equally restraint as he was in that movie, but the actors and implications (not to mention the move from PG-13 to a hard-R rating) left we wanting a bit more actual blood in the bloodshed.

Asphalt City Review

There's no shortage of films based on a specific profession, from firefighting ("Backdraft") to storm chasing ("Twister"), but frequently Hollywood finds a most bare-bones narrative tying the action together (a serial arsonist and a divorcing couple, respectively). But not "Asphalt City," a brutal depiction of paramedics that has about as much plot as a documentary.

It has more in common with 1988's crime picture "Colors" by Dennis Hopper, which starred Sean Penn as the inexperienced cop and Robert Duvall as the more senior one. This time, we follow veteran EMS person Gene (Penn, coincidentally) and a rookie Ollie (Tye Sheridan) throughout New York as they respond to drug overdoses, emergency pregnancies, dead bodies, domestic violence, asthma attacks, dog bites, and more; pretty much every bad situation you could think of on the job. And the point? Well, there really isn't any on the surface. There isn't much explicit characterization of either man outside the fact that Gene's recently divorced (again) and Ollie is trying (again) to get into med school. The film cuts between bursts of extreme chaos and violence to scenes of the duo sitting in near silence as they take turns sleeping in the ambulance. The camera shakes and the music is repetitive and bombastic, making every disorientating moment for them disorientating for us. This is, at its core, an excellent piece of gritty, exploitative film making.

It's the kind of film where it is nearly impossible to catch the character's names, because introductions occur either in silence or off-screen; you end up listening intently to every line hoping to hear someone's moniker, or else you wait until the credits to know. (Or in other words, you wait to read IMDB for who-played-who.)

But "Asphalt City" never rises above being an exhaustive look into the seedy underbelly of NYC, with streets filled with trash, violence and anger like an old Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson film from the 70's. Early on, Gene give Ollie two or so weeks on the job, knowing what this gig can do to you, but Ollie is a cockeyed optimist who only wants to save people. To Gene, however, it's just a job that pays the bills (and his ex-wife's rent, so that he can see his daughter). Mostly, but I don't want to give anything away. The two grow close only because of circumstance and nothing else, and both men play their parts with confidence and seriousness.

There's a subplot involving this girl Ollie met at a club, Clara (Raquel Nave), who spends all but two scenes exposing her breasts and frequently a lot more. Her role is just as much sex appeal as it is to help display how day-after-day of mayhem can lead someone down a path of rage and hate, with Ollie going from being happy to play with her infant to choking her in one of the film's many relatively graphic sex scenes. He goes from looking for companionship to a pent-up release of emotions, frequently told through action over dialogue. 

And there's more insinuation than actual explanation, like how Gene chews on toothpicks on all but his last scene, where we see him puffing on a cigarette. Why? Well you be the judge, but the more you think about the individual moments that fly by seemingly at random, the more you want to learn about the trials and tribulations of real paramedics and not just what writers Ryan King and Ben Mac Brown dolled up for tinseltown.

Of course, this is based on the book Black Flies by Shannon Burke, based on his own experiences, but then again, this is shot more like a docudrama than documentary.

But for all the unorganized anarchy of the first two acts, the third act suddenly decides to give us something that resembles a plot, where Gene and Ollie are faced with trying to save a drug-using, HIV-positive mother and her home-birthed preterm baby. The decision to abruptly challenge the morality of the job feels more scripted than spontaneous, and by the time the unexpectedly optimistic route of redemption of the ending, which I will not spoil, rolls around, you feel betrayed. We see the relentless decay of men as they fail to properly deal with stress and handle their egos, only to chicken out with a "feel good" finale. Well, as close to a "feel good" finale considering its subject matter. 

"Asphalt City" works best when it's just a couple of guys doing a job, a job that just so happens to involve saving people, both the good and the bad. Once it start asking questions about the philosophy on what's happening, you realize it not only doesn't have an answer, but also doesn't know why it doesn't.

Road House Review

Remaking any film is hard work, but imagine the pressure of remaking a classic! But neither have anything on remaking a cult classic; the filmmakers struck the elusive cinematic lightning-in-a-bottle, and you dare try and recapture it?

Amazon MGM Studios' "Road House," which debuts on Amazon Prime, bills itself as a reimagining of the 1989 original. I've never seen the original, but I do know there's monster trucks in it. And I'm sad to report, this new one does not, and suffers thusly.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dalton, the Patrick Swazye's character here, a homeless former UFC champ, disillusioned as he makes money by entering underground fights, then wins by not fighting. Why? Because the other fighters recognize him and back out. We see this as the film opens with a cheap Post Malone cameo, bowing out and losing the pot of winnings. This plot-point doesn't make much sense because it A) depends on everyone knowing who this guy is and B) depends on people being so intimidated.

I'm tempted to say Post Malone's flabby, shirtless body makes even less sense as the "underground champ," but that'd be mean of me. Oh whoops, did I write that out loud?

All this changes when Frankie, owner of the "Road House," an, ahem, roadhouse bar, in the Florida Keys, played by Jessica Williams, asks Dalton if he'd like a temp job as her bouncer. He originally says no because of plot, since the next scene finds him sitting in his car on the train tracks, hoping to kill himself.

I know I know, what a good main character.

He snaps back to reality at the last second, only for his car to stall, but for no reason outside of the magic of movie making does he survive, so it's off to the Sunshine State. It's a bad story marred with even worse CGI effects of boats, trains and trucks, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

What kind of unruly customers frequent this Road House? The goons of a crime boss, naturally. They work for Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen), a sort of high-maintenance prima-donna who whines and freaks out about everything, right down to the way he gets his face shaven. In his defense, he's mad that the guy shaving him keeps nicking him, but then again, he's getting a shave on a yacht, so...

Dalton easily takes out the thugs, which highlights two of the best things this version of "Road House" has going for it: the hand-to-hand combat, and Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. Much of the action is very well-staged and cleanly shot, but sometimes director Doug Liman gets in his own way with silly film techniques like the occasional "first person" view between blows. It is cool in theory, but it is disorientating and makes it hard to see what's going on. He also sometimes blurs the scene, I imagine to simulate how the fighters are getting hurt, as in, their view is blurring, but if I wanted to see what it was like as a bar-fighter, I wouldn't just watch movies based on the subject.

But Gyllenhaal is really quite interesting to watch: he has an awkward screen-presence, kind of mousy, like he's uncertain about each situation he finds himself in. It juxtaposes wonderfully against his rippled muscles. He also speaks with a sort of quite, almost bored tone, as if he views how his life's turned out with sadness and disinterest.

I mean, he could easily be bored, like he knows the script is a stinker, and I dunno, maybe I was grasping at straws for positives. At one point a character compares him to Mr. Rogers, only if he was crossed with John Wick. Unfortunately, the idea is better than the execution.

But again, why are the goons always at the bar? Why don't the cops do anything? Why do these men's wounds heal in what seems like a day? Because plot, that's why!

Ben's dad, who's in prison, really runs the show, and has bought all the land neighboring the bar for his dreams of some silly construction project, or something. I know, thrilling. The fights are the highlight here, but much of the two hour+ long runtime gets bogged down with this silly scheme that you just wish they cut all that noise out and make a shorter, tighter film about some bouncer at an inexplicably rowdy bar. It's this narrative nonsense that leads us to the aforementioned janky special effects, which look atrocious on the small-screen that you wonder if they're the reason this isn't on the big-screen; imagine how much worse they'd look there!

Eventually the boss sends in Knox (Conor McGregor) to kill the bouncer, and this really irks Ben. Actually, everyone hates Knox, but I found no solace in sharing that feeling. Knox is too smug and shallow to be anything but annoying, this obnoxious caricature that only resembles a real-life human in the sense he's played by a person in real life. At at least two points he shows his ass cheeks, and I don't think I've ever seen someone be so proud by their onscreen nudity. Har hee har har.

I get that they were going for a villain you "love to hate," but this would be over-the-top in a cartoon. He just over-does it. The interwebs tells me this is his first movie, so maybe he there's a good actor inside the lump of meat, but then again, the interwebs also tells me he's a pretty horrible person in real life too. So you know, maybe it's just really good casting.

He hulks around in a constant state of flex and speaks with a most irritating brogue, spewing angry trash talk almost every single moment he's in. But what bothered me most was his giant grin he always sports, like someone on the crew kept whispering "you're doing such a good job" in his ear. Sorry Conor, they're lying to you.

Irish Wish Review

Hallmark Channel has Lancey Chabert, Great American Family has Candace Cameron Bure, and now Netflix has Lindsey Lohan. "Irish Wish" marks the second collaboration between the streamer and the actress after 2022's "Falling for Christmas." And good for them, because she is a wonderful actress with impeccable comedic prowess. But boy-howdy did they pick another stinker of a script.

Lindsey plays Madeline, a book editor for the dreamy charmer of an author Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos), who's of course Irish. And wouldn't you know, she has a massive crush on him, who's actually a pretty lousy guy. She dreams of writing her own book, which he promises he'll help with, but "his" comes first. Really Maddie has an awful taste in men. But anyway, at a book launch event... Or something... She inadvertently introduces him to one of her friends Emma (Elizabeth Tan), and they end up getting married just a few months later. In Ireland, naturally.

Maddie's jealous (and her mother's disappointed, since she tells her everything for some reason), but the film wisps us off to Ireland barely twenty minutes into the runtime. And like any of these films, in a luggage mix-up, she meets a different guy, also Irish, a kinda slender-hunk photographer named James (Ed Speleers). Because of course she would.

Everyone is staying at Paul's families house, which is a massive mansion (what else could it be, really), complete with butlers and expensive sculptures, the works.

It also has some absolutely gaudy wallpaper; like every single room is draped in this atrocious wallpaper. Wall-to-wall ugly. Sometimes it was all I could look at. Not the sign of a worthwhile movie, I'd say.

Paul surprises everyone the day they arrive (where no one has jetlag, somehow) with a picnic. But before the picnic, they decide to go on a little boat ride, except for Maddie, who would rather sulk in her emotions on a walk by herself. She accidentally sits on the magic wishing chair, complete with a fairy (Dawn Bradfield), who's performance is like from a completely different movie, who grants her wish. Her, ahem, Irish wish.

I could go over the plot some more but why bother? It's a cheapo romantic comedy that fetishizes over scenic Ireland like a travel brochure. Only I'm sure the writings there more inspired.

I dunno, I've watched a lot of these quickie romcoms over the years, but "Irish Wish" is the first time I've ever seen erotic darts. It's all very PG of course, but hey, when in Ireland...

Ricky Stanicky Review

Someone with John Cena's charisma will one day get a movie worthy of the wrestler-turned-actor, but Amazon MGM Studios' "Ricky Stanicky" is not that. He performs as if the script was written in gold and not by six credited writers, and that is truly a shame. It wastes not only his time, but mine, and life is too short to not laugh during a comedy.

The films centers around three friends, Dean (Zac Efron), Wes (Jermaine Fowler) and JT (Andrew Santino), who all their lives used their unseen friend Ricky Stanicky as a reason to "not" do something. Don't want to go to a baby shower for JT's son? No worries, just pretend Ricky's cancer is back. Because you know, cancer is always funny.

They have a bible chronicling each time Ricky is used, so that all three men are consistent with details. And while not at the aforesaid baby shower, they bump into an alcoholic actor who sings about masturbation to the tune of famous songs as "Rock-hard Ron." Think "Weird Al" but rated X, only his lyrics are about as funny as any penis joke you'd see written on the stall of a high school restroom.

But the trio's plan backfires, somehow only just now, when JT's wife goes into labor early. Now the boy's have to explain why they weren't in a hospital in Albany NY for this "Ricky," since she, her mother, his mother, and everyone else's significant other called "every hospital and no one had a record of a Ricky Stanicky." Dean explains that Ricky's cancer wasn't really back, but that it was a rouse to get to see his friends. Honestly, Rick is a dick. But the sitcom doesn't stop there, since he also promises that Ricky will be there for the bris, which is what all friends go to, leaving the boys in a panic to figure out how their imaginary friend will make an appearance.

"Why not hire an actor to play him?" says Dean to a panicked JT and Wes, and wouldn't you know it, they just meant an actor! Ron! What a convenient turn of events!

What follows is a series of obvious plot points that borrows from other films; take, for example, when Ricky ends up getting a job with Dean and JT after impressing their boss at the bris, played by William H. Macy, with his "fresh perspective." It's dumb and dated and ripped straight from better movies like "Big," only with sex jokes instead floor pianos.

It also doesn't make any sense, since you'd think a corporation would have HR or recruiting who do things like background checks. Maybe if they got a seventh screenwriter, they'd work out the plot holes.

I could go on and on but why bother, if you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the whole thing, and if you've ever seen a "comedy of misidentification," well, you probably had a better time watching that. I didn't laugh once during the entire runtime, my face numb and disinterested as I stared at my large flat-panel TV, wondering why I decided this was a good way to spend a Saturday. I didn't have to pay for popcorn, so I suppose that's something.